UN-Believable

WASHINGTON -- When the so-called mainstream media don't want you to know something, they simply spike the story -- meaning they just don't cover it. That's what's happened to the good news from Iraq. American heroes are in flak jackets and helmets, and their Iraqi counterparts are asserting rule of law for millions of grateful Iraqi civilians once tyrannized by al-Qaida terrorists and Shiite militias. In short, we are winning. That's the good news that isn't news.

Then there is the bad news that isn't news. That includes stories about the United Nations interfering in U.S. domestic politics. It also includes stories about Iranian nuclear ambitions and what the U.N. isn't doing about it. These accounts aren't as titillating as Scott "Brutus" McClellan's back-stabbing book on the Bush administration, which throws salt in the wounds of every family member of a fallen soldier, sailor, airman or Marine. Nor do these reports get the twisted attention paid to crude oil at $130 per barrel or $4.25-per-gallon gasoline because of Big Oil. So in case you missed these "non-stories," here's the short form of what didn't make the cut for the major newspapers or your big-network evening news programs -- and it's UN-believable.

First there's the strange case of Doudou Diene, the United Nations "Special Rapporteur" on "contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance." He's really a lawyer from Senegal, traveling first-class on a U.N. ticket, and he arrived in the U.S. May 19 for a three-week "fact-finding trip."

According to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Diene is here to investigate and recommend solutions to alleged American human rights violations. His itinerary includes visits to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, Omaha, Neb., and San Juan, Puerto Rico, and meetings with federal and state lawmakers, legal analysts, politicians, nongovernmental organizations, activists and academics "to gather first-hand information on issues related to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance." No kidding. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Diene will submit his report and recommendations at the second U.N. World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in April 2009, dubbed "Durban II"; it's a sequel to the 2001 gathering. This week, the U.N. decided to hold next year's America/Israel-bashing gabfest in Geneva, Switzerland, instead of Durban because South Africa is being rocked by -- get this -- xenophobia and racial violence. If this were fiction, no one would believe it. It gets better.

Oliver North is a nationally syndicated columnist, the host of War Stories on the Fox News Channel, the author of the new novel Heroes Proved and the co-founder of Freedom Alliance, an organization that provides college scholarships to the children of U.S. military personnel killed or permanently disabled in the line of duty. Join Oliver North in Israel by going to www.olivernorthisrael.com.